The Female Perspective: Black Widow, Has Everyone Gone Crazy?

I’m struggling to give my female character Nika Silbersichel depth, without making her wimpy or annoying. She starts out weak, and her character arc is all about finding strength and finding herself (and empowerment) in a man’s world.

My story is a supernatural action adventure story, so just how much personal growth is too much? I like this blog post because it addresses the fact that movie viewers (like novel readers) might just read too much into a character arc than the creator intended.

Because Nika is weak in the opening chapters, does that mean that the critical reader won’t continue with the book because they hate how she acts and reacts to her world, and how she lets men get away with being awful to her? In the 1930s, even with suffrage, women were not given much respect in the culture.

Later in the book, she has quite a few revelations and grows (in my opinion), into a very strong female character. But if the reader sets the book down early on, they will never find out. What do you think? Let me know your responses to this, and to the blog post I’ve shared.

Welcome! This is a Tri-weekly blog* by Author J.L. Metcalf where I discuss anything and everything that strikes my fancy. If you have ideas on what you think I should write about, please send me an email via my website!

For now, sit back, relax and enjoy the blog!

*All views expressed in “The Female Perspective” are those of J.L. Metcalf, not Great Stories, Inc.

I would be Black Widow in a second, uterus or no uterus.

I’m going to assume that most of you who read this blog know who Black Widow is, many of you probably know more about her than I do and that’s cool, please feel free to share that knowledge in the comments! That being said I want to address the fact that there seems to be a bit of a firestorm out there about Black Widow’s treatment in the last Avengers movie. Now…

I keep reading books like yours because of the other characters too. Typically there is at least one I connect with. Even though Nika is weak at the beginning – I also want her to grow and am hoping she will do so. If by the middle of the book she hasn’t… then I’d probably give up on her, but not necessarily quit reading.